The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction): A Novel

Colson Whitehead

Jul 2019 · Sold by Anchor

About this ebook

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. • "One of the most gifted novelists in America today." —NPR

Nickel Boys, soon to be a major motion picture directed by Academy Award® nominee RaMell Ross. Coming to Theaters this Fall.
 
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
 
Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers and “should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation's best" (Entertainment Weekly).

Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto!

Ratings and reviews

I will not forget this book. It is too honest, (although fiction), to simply add to a bookshelf and hope someone asks you about it. it needs to be shared, shouted, and situated in a worthy place. That place being everywhere. Colson stands rightfully on the shoulders of Baldwin, Wright, & Ellison.

I did not give this book four stars because I enjoyed it. In fact, it's an excruciatingly difficult book to finish and not for the fainthearted. Also, unusually powerful. And the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. The Nickel Boys is based on a true story, something you learn more about in the author's afterword. The title refers to those youngsters who spent time at a Florida state reform school for boys. During the 1960s, both white and black boys are sent there, though they are housed and fed separately since this period coincides with Southern segregation. Those who run the school make no substantial effort at either education or rehabilitation. Instead, the boys provide endless hours of free labor while facing continual bullying and punishment. It's an institution where racism, sadism, sexual and physical abuse, and political corruption converge. The very reason why it's such a difficult book to read. These are teenagers, after all. The central character is the optimistic Elwood Curtis, unjustly sentenced to Nickel Academy and subjected to its brutality, whose only salvation comes from his deepening friendship with the skeptical Turner. How these two boys navigate a situation none of us would want to experience makes for a compelling story that is well-written. But certainly NOT fun.

Yup. Worst part is that it ended so fast.

About the author

COLSON WHITEHEAD is the number one New York Times bestselling author of nine books of fiction and non-fiction, including The Underground Railroad, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award and was named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. He is also a recipient of the MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships. In 2020, he won his second Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Nickel Boys. He lives in New York City.